Player One
by Willy Dubs the Awesome
Summary: This is the story of Player One, in all of his guises, all of his lives, all of his adventures. All of his woes, all of his losses, all of his deaths and resurrections. Rated for violence. Please review.
1. 1-1

Mario looked up at the tattered castle on the hill, barely believing the act he had just committed.

The castle itself was draped in red, the crimson drapes touching the ground like a mother with the knowledge that she would never again see her child: gently touching his shoulder as if to tell him she would see him again, without having to speak a lie. For the red was not mere cloth. It was not silk, nor any solid fabric.

It was the fabric of the body: it was blood. Koopa blood.

Mario looked up at the crimson curtains, liquid, dripping curtains, which shrouded the castle, and for the first time in his journey, was at a loss of words. The sadness was gathering inside him, peering through his eyes at the pools of red that surrounded the outer wall. At the sight, the sadness warped into anger, anger at the loss of a thousand souls whose broken shells now lay strewn about the courtyard, and whose mangled bodies hung like banners from the walls

This was Mario's doing, but his heart did not beat to kill.

It was his mind hat felt the urge to avenge the woman he lost, the woman who had died a whore in Bowser's castle, tossed into the heartless lava like a an old toy that had grown boring to a child. But even his mind was not capable of the atrocities that Mario had brought himself to commit on the Koopa race. The root of Mario's slaughters was in an entity somewhere in between his mind and his heart, an unnamed voice that called from the lava where the princess was thrown, calling for Mario to avenge her death, even to slaughter the race of her killer.

As the anger subsided, its last remnants began to form a new feeling: hate. The feeling was familiar, comfortable, even comforting. Mario had come to know hate like a brother: a feeling of purpose, a reason to live, even a reason to kill. Every Goomba skull shattered under his boot, every Koopa maimed in its shell by the bloodied white glove of a so-called hero, every massacre by the mustached man would never have happened without hate.

But what did he truly hate? When he first donned the hat that was said to turn men to weapons, he hated only the creature that killed the princess. As he had fought his way through the rank's of Bowser's legions, a hate for the Koopa race began to blacken his heart, slowly reaching for his mind. Now, there was a third hate forming within him, a hate that could not be quenched by genocide, nor driven back by false causes: A hate for himself.

This hate was inextinguishable, for as before, he could merely take away the threat, and he had now taken on the role that he once wished to destroy. He was the threat, an evil that he now realized was a not a living thing, nor a group of living thing, but something much more: a mask taken on by men, Koopas, and all life.

And as Mario gazed upon the blood-stained hill and the bloodied stones that made up Bowser's castle, he realized that there was but one way that justice could be balanced, for the Princess and for Bowser, and, in finality, for himself. Mario decided on that dreary night that he would take his own life.

And so, Mario took one last gaze at the bloodied grass and shattered shells beneath his feet, before kneeling to pick up a broken piece of shell and stab it through his gut. And for once, Mario, a tortured soul, was happy.


	2. 1-2

The shell was cold. Piercing into his stomach, ever farther, ever closer to death. With every stinging surge of pain, Mario stepped closer to The Princess. One step at a time, one inch closer with every drive into his abdomen. Step by step, memory by memory, growing closer ad closer to a death more welcoming than life.

At last Mario collapsed, a smile of satisfaction still clinging to his lips. He lie motionless in the bloody grass, a content but regretful soul retreating to what lie beyond.

But there was a part of him that rose into the placid air, reaching for the clouds, who only forced their smiles and stared back woefully. For this part of him was not one to accompany the dying mind of a tragic soul. It was a memory that would live on, drifting from life to life as the ages passed, reincarnations of the mustached man, borne with the weight of the sins that the hat carried, cursed with fate of suicide to start the cycle anew, blessed with burden of the Mushroom Kingdom's protection, gifted with the arts of the fire, the star, and the mushroom. They would come to be known as Player One.

These brave souls would come to stand against the tyranny of Bowser's heirs, entrusted with the throne after his demise. Player One in all his forms, for all his lives, would be the one to fight, and the one to kill, when death was the only answer. His cruelty towards the Koopas would be vindicated by suicide, possessing a new Player each time to take control of the world's fate. Life after life, death after death, game after game.

This is the story of Player One, in all of his guises, all of his lives, all of his adventures. All of his woes, all of his losses, all of his deaths and resurrections.

It is all compiled here, in this book, for all to read and for all to enjoy.


End file.
